1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to slide and hinge suspension systems for supporting cabinet doors. More particularly, the present invention relates to a hinge bracket for use in converting common pocket door slide systems from achieving an inset or a partial overlay configuration when the door is in a closed position to achieving a full overlay configuration when the door is in a closed position.
2. Description of the Related Art
It has become more common for cabinets to be used as entertainment centers to house televisions or other audio and/or visual equipment. The design of such cabinets has evolved into a fairly common style of product. Entertainment centers often comprise an upright cabinet that may be camouflaged by style and finish to appear as though it were one of the existing pieces of furniture in a room.
This type of cabinet typically has a pair of large doors that enclose a front opening in an upper portion of the cabinet. These doors may be opened to reveal a television set, stereo or other entertainment system that has been conveniently hidden from view until it is desired to be used. Many times, these cabinets are found in hotel rooms where they combine a series of drawers within a lower portion of the same cabinet, providing storage as well as the provisions for the entertainment center.
Because it has been found to be desirable to keep the components of the entertainment center out of sight when not in use, the doors that are found on such cabinets provide an important function of concealment. As the design of this type of cabinetry evolved, it was not satisfactory to have the doors merely hinged onto the sides of the cabinet walls because they could rotate back into a semi-closed or fully closed position but would potentially obscure the entertainment center or present an obstacle in proximity of the cabinet.
As a result, suspension systems for hanging the doors on such cabinets were developed to allow the doors to be hinged to an open position, and thereafter, to traverse rearward into the interior of the cabinet, into a so-called “pocket” space in parallel alignment with the cabinet side walls. The door suspension systems have typically been based upon the usage of drawer slide technology, notably precision drawer slide technology using telescoping slide members and ball or roller bearings, such as is found in office furniture applications and the like, although other more simplistic drawer slides may be used. In the case of such door applications, however, it is necessary to use a specialized slide adapted in a way that allows the door to be mounted to a portion of a sliding element, while at the same time allowing it to hinge when it reaches the fully opened position. In this manner, the functionality of the suspension system provides both a hinged opening and closing relationship relative to the door and the hinge, as well as a translational action between a forward position at a ninety degree angle to the front of the cabinet, and a rearward position within the cabinet body.
Given their movement and storage position within the cabinet, doors of this type have become known as “pocket doors”. In turn, the slide suspension systems that support each pocket door in these applications have become known as “pocket door slides”.
A number of pocket door slide systems have been developed in the prior art, with particular structures designed to keep the doors from sagging, racking or otherwise becoming misaligned when in position to be moved rearward into the cabinet or forward out from the cabinet. For instance, there are systems that use a rigid follower strip, anti-racking plate or bar, made for instance of wood, metal or other suitable materials or combinations thereof, and connected to the upper and lower pocket door slides and their hinge mounting assemblies, such as are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,108,165, to positively maintain the alignment of such components. Alternatively, there are pocket door slide systems that use a cable system to keep the door aligned by connecting the slide assemblies and their hinges, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,974,912 and 5,395,165. Further alternative alignment components for pocket door slide systems are disclosed in U.S. Patent Application Publication US 2004/0046488. These systems utilize rack and pinion components that offer a pair of racks and pinion gears for each slide, which are connected via an axle. While such systems may be constructed in many forms and may be used with a pair of hinges on a standard door, such rack and pinion systems may be constructed to be particularly well suited for maintaining alignment of very large pocket doors that require more than two hinges.
In all of these or other prior art pocket door slide systems, the slides are typically mounted to the inner surface of the outer side walls of the cabinet. In turn, hinges commonly known as a “Euro-hinge”, manufactured for instance by Arutro Salice S.p.A., typically have either a 35 mm or 40 mm hinge mounting cup, and are mounted to the slides to achieve full inset doors, i.e., doors that when hinged to the closed position are recessed so as to have their front surface be substantially flush with, or in the same plane as, the front edges of the cabinet side walls. These hinges have numerous advantages, including their three-way adjustability and the ability to remove the hinged door easily from the cabinet.
With full inset doors, a gap exists between the outer edge of each door and the respective adjacent cabinet side wall when the door is in the closed position. In applications where the piece of furniture has a cabinet above drawers and the drawers also are of the inset style, this is acceptable. However, a popular style is full overlay, where the doors and drawers fully overlay the cabinet sides which are typically ¾″ thick. It is desirable to match the pocket doors to the full overlay drawers, but to date, the systems capable of achieving a full overlay for pocket doors when in a closed door position require specialized slide components, or specific components necessary to modify the cabinet, which are unique to a full overlay application, as opposed to using commonly stocked components and cabinet structures from an inset system.
An example of a system having specialized slide components is disclosed in U.S. Patent Application Publication US 2004/0239216. However, such systems are more complicated and expensive. The need to stock specialized slides, which are a fairly costly part of a pocket door slide system, just for use in full overlay pocket door applications, is not desirable.
Similarly, an example of a cabinet requiring specialized components to modify the cabinet to achieve a full overlay system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,108,165. This cabinet system requires specialized columnar frame members to be mounted to an inner cabinet wall to space the entire slide and hinge system from the inner wall, as well as a specific anti-rack plate to achieve the full overlay result. Once again, the specialized nature of the components and mounting is not desirable.
Alternatively, some systems have attempted to use hinges mounted on a thinly milled wood follower strip to achieve partial pocket door overlay. However, due to the limitations of the wood strength and the need to fasten the hinge bases to the follower strips at the thinned sections, only modest improvement in door overlay has been achieved using these designs. As a result, these modified systems are not capable of achieving a full overlay position, and thus do not cover the entire front edge of the adjacent side wall.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to be able to convert conventional pocket door slide system hardware, that utilizes relatively standard drawer slides and common Euro-hinge style components regularly stocked by cabinet manufacturers and designed to achieve an inset or partial overlay position, to a system that can alternatively achieve a full overlay position for pocket doors when in the closed position. It also would be advantageous to be able to achieve the full overlay position regardless of which pocket door slide system is used to maintain the door alignment, whether it be of the type which uses an anti-racking bar, cable system, rack and pinion, or other approach to coordinating the movement of the drawer slides.
It further would be advantageous to be able to utilize a single bracket for all hinge mounting positions, whether on the left or right side of the cabinet and whether it be for use with an upper or lower slide.
It also would be advantageous to be able to achieve such conversion of hardware, whether the particular application has one or two hinges associated with each slide unit.
In the full overlay position, each door is positioned to fully cover the front edge of the respective adjacent cabinet side wall. To the knowledge of the inventors, prior to the development of the present invention, the common slides and Euro-hinge style hinges used for inset or partial overlay pocket doors were not able to be conveniently adapted to achieve a full overlay position for pocket doors when hinged to the closed position.